"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." Orwell

"Men are so simple of mind and so dominated by immediate needs that the deceitful man can easily find those ready to be deceived."
Machiavelli

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire

Thursday, October 18, 2012

When The Truth Is Just Another Lie

At Debate Part Deux, Mitt Romney made a point of saying that when he was governor there was a program that allowed kids who'd graduated in the top quarter of their high schools to go to state colleges tuition free. It's true, and it sounds pretty great. Except for one little detail.

In Massachusetts, so that the good governor could claim he kept taxes and tuition down, they have fees coming out of their asses. Unlike most states, college tuition in MA is only a fraction of the cost of attending, a fraction that keeps getting smaller. Since Romney took office, "tuition" has remained unchanged, while fees and other costs, like room and board (which isn't part of "fees") have skyrocketed, making college increasingly unaffordable, tuition grants notwithstanding:

So. Mitt Romney actually told the truth in one case, and it's still a lie. Knock me over with an offshore account.

For The Sake of My Sanity

Some will know me from my other blog, "Surgeonsblog." Of late I've given over to frothing at the mouth as the world descends into stupidity, and our politics and our citizens seem, in numbers enough to be meaningful, unable to see it. So for now I'm leaving surgery writing behind, if for no other reason than to defuse and diffuse my unrelenting sense of doom, and with no expectation of making a difference. These are things that, to me, are obvious. Except that, apparently, they aren't.

RWS™

RWS™: For those who drop by here in the middle, and wonder what it means: it's my shorthand for Right Wing Screamers, which includes such a long list it's tiresome to type it. (I distinguish these blowhards from thoughtful conservatives, of whom I sort of take it on faith that there must still be some.) You know who I mean: Palin, Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Breitbart (RIP), Malkin, Savage, Levin, Ingraham, Doocey (more of a drooler than a screamer), Hewitt, Goldberg, Gingrich, Kristol, Scarborough (+/-), Bachmann, Inhofe, Bond, Broun, Boehner, Kelley, Santorum, Cain. To name but a few. Behold them in their unrepentant disregard for reality: the RWS™